Name's Jason Thibeault. I'm an IT guy, skeptic, feminist, gamer and atheist, and love OSS, science of all stripes (especially space-related stuff), and debating on-line and off. I enjoy a good bit of whargarbl now and again, and will occasionally even seek it out. I am also apparently responsible for the death of common sense on the internet. My bad.

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EVENTS

CONvergence: Doomsday Scenarios

Another of the three panels I was on, audio only unfortunately. Do let me know if the questions from the audience aren’t audible, I might be able to normalize the volume some. I’m not terribly experienced with Audacity, but I’m willing to play with it some more if you have problems.

Also on the panel were biologist and medium-calibre blogger PZ Myers, sci-fi author Adam Whitlatch, math professor and zombie afficionado Robert Smith? (yes, the question mark is part of his real name), and The Skeptical Teacher Matt Lowry (who tried to bite PZ’s head and whapped me about with a CONvergence schedule — I’m just saying).

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We talked about zombies, meteors, biological pandemics, solar flares, far-flung techno scenarios like Skynet and the Grey Goo, and nuclear armageddon. So, you know, good times were had by all.

If for some reason you’d rather listen to the panel in Powerpoint .PPTX format (why???), Matt Lowry has you covered. His recording’s from his own phone, so the audio might be different in whom you can hear and whom you can’t.

I had no idea Smith? was such a huge part of Doctor Who fandom until I started doing research for this post. The guy sounds pretty awesome all around, and if he hadn’t disappeared minutes after the end of the panel (I assume to run to another one — not everyone had the super-light workload I did!), I might have chatted with him some.

Yes, we basically came up through the same fan channels around the same time (rec.arts.drwho on usenet, followed by a private mailing list), the difference being that he is a talented author and I am not. ;)

I have attended Gallifrey One for the last 12 years, and I see him there sometimes. I really should try to make it to CONvergence next year, not only for the Skepchick/FTB content but because another old Doctor Who friend is heavily involved in the organizing. And I’ve never been to the Twin Cities!

kaboobie, you missed a good panel last year (CONvergence 2011) where the guy (wish I remembered his name) who asisted Neil Gaiman on The Doctor’s Wife went over details of what went into the story, what wasn’t able to get in, and various other things.

Next years theme is “British Invasion” so if you’re a Who fan you’ll be sure to fit in. :)

Oh, to those of you listening, you may need some context for one part of the panel when I make an obviously video-game-meme-related joke interjection — Adam Whitlatch stands up at one point and mimes using a bow-and-arrow to shoot down a North Korean nuclear weapon. You don’t get to “hear” that in the panel, obviously.

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[…] routine. What’s novel, though, is that I was on three panels: Don’t Feed the Trolls, Doomsday Scenarios and Growing Up Online. I also continued talking about the harassment policies campaign pushback, […]